Keenan: Urine luck guys; flow is worth studying

The day before Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, I found myself in the Newark, New Jersey train station, anxiously trying to get to the airport to escape the storm. Newark Penn Station doesn’t really have much to recommend, except for a McDonalds that sells pretty decent coffee and a public washroom to deal with the inevitable consequences.

Entering that washroom I joined a line of gentlemen at the urinals who could easily have staffed an entire NBA team. One let put a whoop of pleasure and said “Ohhh Man!” – a sentiment that was immediately echoed up and down the line of happy urinators.

This got me thinking about the fun side of the male urinary system and of course, my next stop was the Internet. Facebook proved disappointing. Yes, there is a page called “Peeing is Pleasurable” with a photo of a toilet and 31 likes and no dislikes. But its content is limited to precisely one sentence “This is the one great truth of the world.”

Moving up the Internet food chain, Wikipedia’s entry on urination reminds us that micturition, to use the fancy term, doesn’t just expel wastes, it may also serve to “mark territory or express submissiveness.” The author is referring to dogs and wolves, but what growing boy hasn’t tried to write his name in the snow with pee or had a big enough fright to feel it running down his leg?

Speaking of running down your leg, researchers in the U.K. have discovered that the shape of the male urine stream can be an effective diagnostic test for the whole urinary apparatus. Led by a fluid dynamics engineer, Martin M. Knight, of Queen Mary University of London, they studied the output of 60 healthy volunteers and 60 men who being treated for low urinary flow rate, often related to enlargement of the prostate gland.

The results showed that “for the patients, the relationship between shape (of the urine stream) and flow rate suggested poor meatal opening during voiding.” That information, in turn, can be “a useful diagnostic tool for medical practitioners since it provides a non-invasive method of measuring urine flow rate and urethral dilation.” Even better, the researchers found that self-assessment of the urinary flow was accurate enough to be useful; so men can do this test at home which is probably a much better setting than in a clinic.

No discussion of male waterworks would be complete without tackling urinary dribble, which, if the online pundits can be believed, is a rampant nuisance for guys worldwide. Of course this problem has been studied academically. Finnish researchers found that 63 per cent of men aged 50-70 experienced post-micturition dribble, with 48 per cent just reporting “after dribbling in the toilet” and 15 per cent finding “small and large amounts in the trousers.” Physiotherapist Grace Dorey, who wrote a literature review on this subject, notes that “the amount can be as much as 15 ml or an egg-cup full. It is a common problem for men of all ages including young men, but is particularly troubling for older men”

Dorey suggests ways to combat dribbling, such as pelvic exercises. The Kegel is probably the best known. You do it by imagining that you’re trying to stop the flow of urine, or better yet, actually do that; then, you’ll certainly know when you’ve got it right. Rumor has it that toning this muscle has other benefits that have nothing to do with the bathroom.

Another drip-proofing idea for guys is to push the last bits of urine out through something called post-voiding urethral message, which is not the same as shaking. It’s probably safest to find illustrated directions for doing this online before you go poking around down there and possibly injure yourself. Of course, all these tips presume you have talked with your doctor and ruled out something serious like prostate cancer which can also cause urinary symptoms.

Male urination has even been given mythic, religious, and symbolic significance. One of the more evocative images was proposed by the American author and professor Camille Paglia. In a book that sent feminists howling, Paglia wrote that “male urination really is a kind of accomplishment, an arc of transcendence. A woman merely waters the ground she stands on.”

Freud also saw huge significance in male urination, tying it back to our mastery of fire. He wrote “it is as though primal man had the habit, when he came in contact with fire, of satisfying an infantile desire connected with it, by putting it out with a stream of his urine.” Freud then theorizes that “the first person to renounce this desire and spare the fire was able to carry it off with him and subdue it to his own use.” Now, there’s something to think about the next time you’re at a urinal. It just might make you say “Ohhh, Man!”

Dr. Tom Keenan is an award winning journalist, public speaker, and professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Calgary.

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